Seat covers have been a popular item for a number of years and have been used extensively in covering vehicular seats. They are an inexpensive and easy way to hide damaged or unattractive seat upholstery and can also provide added cushioning to the seat.
Vehicular seats currently come in a variety of sizes and shapes. These include highback seats, lowback seats and seats with and without headrests. Highback seats, as the name implies, have a longer and narrower backrest portion than lowback seats. Headrests are often attached to the top of the backrests and are generally of a smaller width than the backrest. This creates a wide shoulder area of the backrest adjacent the narrower bottom of the headrest. The top of the headrest and the shoulders of the backrest thus form high points in the contour of the backrest with the area at the base of the headrest forming a valley. A universal seat cover which can conform to the variations in seat types is thus highly desirable. However, due to the wide range of sizes of vehicular seats a universal seat cover is very difficult to design.
Without a universal seat cover, merchants must stock a large variety of seat covers to accomodate a number of different seat styles. This is both costly and inefficient for the merchant as well as the manufacturer. In addition, if a consumer attempts to use a seat cover that is not specifically designed for his seat problems will arise with the fit and appearance of the seat cover. A seat cover that is too large will create a baggy fit of the seat cover, whereas a seat cover that is too small will not fully cover a large seat leaving portions of the seat exposed. This will create a very unattractive and unsatisfactory appearance of the seat cover.
Currently, semi-universal seat covers are known that can adapt to seats of either the highback or lowback variety. U.S. Pat. No. 4,669,779 to Kaganas et al illustrates an adjustable seat cover of this type. The seat cover includes a backrest envelope having an elastic panel to give the backrest envelope the ability to change shape to conform to the backrest of either a highback or lowback seat. A major deficiency in this system is that the backrest envelope of the seat cover cannot fully conform to a seat with a headrest. The valley at the base of the headrest between the high points of the top of the headrest and the shoulders of the backrest creates a baggy portion of the seat cover in this area and a very unattractive appearance.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,549 to English shows an adjustable backrest envelope for a seat cover that can conform to both highback and lowback seat backrests. This seat cover utilizes an elastic cap portion as well as an elastic back panel to permit adjustment to various sized seats. This seat cover, however, has the same deficiency of not having the ability to fully conform to the valleys between the spaced high points formed by the shoulders of the backrest and the top of the headrest.